• More than 1,600 plants with a total of 300 kilos of marijuana seized in a new operation in the La Mancha municipality of 'El Casar'

• A person has been arrested, accused of crimes against public health and electricity fraud

• The house, a 380-square-meter building spread over three floors, had a good part of the rooms dedicated to growing plants, giving the exterior appearance of a mere residential property.

February 28, 2024.- Officials of the Customs Surveillance Service of the Tax Agency in Castilla-La Mancha have intervened in a home in the municipality of El Casar (Guadalajara) that was fully dedicated to the cultivation of 'indoor' marijuana. As a result of this operation, the second of a similar nature carried out in recent days in the same town, more than 1,600 plants with more than 300 kilos of marijuana have been seized and one person has been arrested who is accused of crimes against public health and electricity fraud.

The so-called 'Pantano' operation was carried out by the Customs Surveillance Service's Operational Unit in Guadalajara, in collaboration with the Central Mobile Brigade of the General Subdirectorate of Operations of the Tax Agency. The operation, which led to the dismantling of the plantation on February 22, began last January, thanks to the collaboration of citizens.

The initial investigation finally culminates with the entry and search of the house, where the agents find a total of 1,620 marijuana plants in different stages of growth and flowering, located in various rooms of the property and adapted for illegal cultivation, with the necessary infrastructure for this.

A property dedicated to the cultivation of marijuana

The house that was seized was a single-family property, measuring approximately 380 square metres, with a layout of three floors and a mezzanine, in which all the rooms had been used for illegal marijuana plantations, with the exception of the entrance to the property, the kitchen, and the living room, the latter being used as a bedroom and dining room, as if it were a 'narco-home'.

The building had an electrical installation perfectly arranged to supply the different air conditioning, air extraction and lighting and heat lamps, as well as the irrigation system itself. All the machinery was seized as part of the operation, as well as numerous fertilizers used to force the growth of the plants.

The plantation dismantled in this operation would have had a market value of approximately 600,000 euros per harvest, although the annual production of these plantations is up to six harvests per year, depending on various factors, such as genetics, space or energy. Most indoor plants produce between 400 and 500 grams of marijuana per square meter.

During the operation, one person of foreign nationality was arrested inside the property, while two collaborators were also located who investigators consider equally responsible for the crime thanks to a series of investigative efforts carried out to avoid raising suspicions, given that the house had a remote surveillance system to control the plantation that could have alerted the police presence at the time of the intervention. The two collaborators are under investigation but not detained.

Following the intervention, the collaboration of workers from the company responsible for the electricity supply in the area also made it possible to detect the illegal connection to the electrical grid that had been implemented for the home. Unlike installations of this type on rural land, where it is common to detect with relative ease the existence of illegal connections to light poles, plantations located within municipalities are not easy to detect with the naked eye, since the electrical system is usually underground and the illegal connections are hidden.

The investigation remains open and new arrests are not ruled out.